Gender Inclusive Language - French Edition

A few months ago we had a lively and interesting discussion on the subject of changing languages for the sake of gender equality.

I wasn't exactly a fan of the idea because my mother language (french) is heavily gendered and "fixing" it to be gender neutral would basically require reworking the entire language from the grounds up and no one could be bothered to go through that kind of hassle.I also doubted that language has an effect on sexism in the first place for the simple reason that countries with non (or less) gendered languages do not seem any less sexist than countries with gendered languages up the wazoo.

Well, I was wrong on one thing. There seem to be a French movement pushing for "Gender Inclusive French" and they even managed to get a new textbook in french primary schools using that "Gender Inclusive French"... "But Vlip, you told us this was impossible to do in French, what gives?" You ask...

Well, I'll let you judge it for yourself.

Basically, from what I can understand from a quick read of a few news articles, they decided to ignore gendered words in general and concentrate themselves on the plurals.In French, as in most gendered languages, you can have male and female words in singular, but when they become plural they are grammatically male.English is no different: one actor, one actress, many actorSIn French, un acteur, une actrice, plusieurs acteurs.

This obviously cannot stand (/s) and needs to be fixed. But you obviously can't flip 50% of those words to be "female plural" to get equality in average, since you'd make the language way more complicated than it already is.

So their solution is the following: acteur-trice-s(The "-" between words are supposed to be midpoints. Literaly points situated at mid height, no idea how to do this on a keyboard...)

Yes, you've read that right.

So, to "translate" that in english, to say the following sentence:"American actors were invited to a gala".You would now write"American actor-tress-s were invited to a gala"

I personally would call this is an abomination. It breaks the flow of reading, it's horrendously ugly and increases the length of a word massively for a very dubious purpose. Also, and most importantly, there is no way you can actually say that out loud...

To which the authors of that particular beauty say that it's not meant to be used in oral communication nor for literature, only for written communication...

So let me sum that up for you:- instead of adding one letter for plural you end up almost doubling the length of letters- it cannot be spoken aloud (or with your inner voice)- it cannot be used for literature- it uses a character that is not standard on any current keyboard

And all that without any real basis on their claim that those grammatical constructs (as unfair as they might be) are the root cause of sexism in the first place.

It would be simpler if for most things that don't need to be gendered, we use either word for either. Actor or actress could be male or female, interchangeably.

I mean, really, your options if you feel the need to change the language (And as a semi-bilingual white male, I'm not sure I do, but privilege...) you have essentially 4 options:

1) Ignore it2) Use both options interchangeably IE: Actors == Actresses3) Choose just one, and acknowledge it will always be gender neutral, history bedamned4) Create a new word, that is hopefully not an abomination.

About the only thing I like about Mandarin. The language is gender free. Just wo (me), ni (you), ta (everyone else). I would think French would be more difficult than English as so many objects have masculine or feminine designations. And those hyphenations are just plain abominable!

The way it is generally done around here to make one's life easier is to preface any communication with something like "Pour ne pas alourdir le texte, nous nous conformons à la règle qui permet d'utiliser le masculin avec la valeur de neutre." Basically "To avoid overcomplicating the following documents, we will be conforming with the rule allowing the masculine form to be the neutral form." Which the OQLF also disagrees with.

While I understand the reasons why one would try to address the situation, all these solutions are cumbersome (and artificial) and I really question whether it achieves social change. I most instances, except the OQLF's "write them both out" solution, still generally ends up with the féminin as the add-on.

I'm glad I no longer work in a communications department, this was a nightmare to deal with when writing client-facing documents, whichever option you picked, someone would be offended.

The Church of Sweden is urging its clergy to use gender-neutral language when referring to the supreme deity, refraining from using terms such as “Lord” and “he” in favour of the less specific “God.”

This always bothered me with that anthropomorphic representations of God, who isn't. I remember in AA when we'd recite the Lords Prayer to listen for the grinding of teeth when the "our father" was spoken at the beginning of the meeting. It set the tone and I argued that it wasn't really being "spiritual." I'm please that somewhere this is being recognized. I used to whisper, "not my father!"

In a newsgroup I participated in in the early 90's the group alt.soc.single we decied to use their as the pronoun and some other word they devised I didn't care for.

In French, German, and other languages gender is a big part in the words, like die, les, la, etc. I think gender neutral pronouns need to be added to the conversation in English. And I think gender, along with racial descriptions should be left out as well not a black or white or brown or what-ever man or woman which should be replaced with individual or person or something. We do this with children.

Well, the words don't become male-gendered when they are in their plural form. It's just that when units of different genders are mixed, the result is male-gendered. Several actresses on a set are 'actrices' alright, but when a man join them, they all suddenly become 'acteurs'. Adjectives are gendered, and they follow the same rules, as well as the past participles. The male form is considered as the neutral one, which for some people is the 'normal one' (hence the proposal, to balance the language out of a male-normative paradigm)

The proposal is that all those gendered words would take all the forms at the same time, which I find clumsy, and mostly unreadable for nouns and a lot of adjectives. Past participles are usually more readable, because you just have to add a 'e' after the 'é' and before the 's'.

However, the 'Male takes it all' rule has not always been the norm, and some famous French writers from the 17th century (e.g. Racine) used a rule that I like very much, and that I'd prefer to be applied again instead of butchering our language and adding a new sign into the typography. They used to have a proximity rule, and the closest noun from the adjective or past participle would give its gender to it.

I'd like that because the rule doesn't add anything, and is even easier to follow. It even add flexibility to the spelling, as you can adjust it to your writing style.

'Les acteurs et actrices américaines étaient invitées au gala.'

You don't like the spelling of this adjective 'américaines'? Just put the women in front of the sentence.

'Les actrices et acteurs américains étaient invités au gala.'

You don't like to have women first in your sentences? Too bad, they are present anyway, in one form on another.

I don't mean to derail Vlip's thread, but briefly I do find it quite odd that the Oscars have a category for best female actor. It seems perverse to be on the leading edge of a movement to eliminate a word and then recreate it in the form of a phrase. If there's good reason to eliminate the word actress there's probably also good reason to eliminate the best actress category not just give it an awkward alternative name.

The American solution seems to be just that everybody is an actor now. Seems fine to me. Adoption has been mixed, but nobody seems to care if a woman calls herself an actor.

It's a bit more complex than that. In some cases the male is still the neuter default but there's quite a bit of push to make the female gender the neutral (see writing style guides that use "her" and "she" pronouns when the subject's gender isn't specified). The more modern push for pronouns is to fully decouple from the male and female gender by using the plural pronouns (they, their, etc). So you might see a mixture of gendered nouns as neuter with plural pronouns being used for singular neuter in the same sentence.

You don't like the spelling of this adjective 'américaines'? Just put the women in front of the sentence.

'Les actrices et acteurs américains étaient invités au gala.'

You don't like to have women first in your sentences? Too bad, they are present anyway, in one form on another.

I like this a lot because it flows well and can easily be applied to speech as well. The one Vlip originally posted... blech. I am sympathetic to the idea of a non-gendered French language as the idea has been brought up by a few friends before, but it must be done well.

You don't like the spelling of this adjective 'américaines'? Just put the women in front of the sentence.

'Les actrices et acteurs américains étaient invités au gala.'

You don't like to have women first in your sentences? Too bad, they are present anyway, in one form on another.

I like this a lot because it flows well and can easily be applied to speech as well. The one Vlip originally posted... blech. I am sympathetic to the idea of a non-gendered French language as the idea has been brought up by a few friends before, but it must be done well.

I wonder if conversion from a gendered to a non-gendered language has ever been done deliberately. All Indo-European languages derive from ancient proto-IE languages that were strongly inflected and gendered. Most modern IE languages have lost a lot of the ancient grammar but this appears to have happened spontaneously. For instance, see the difference between Old English and Middle English. The Both OE and French had noun and adjective gender but the endings were different and might have been confusing with so many loan words being added to OE. Language historians refer to the adoption of French words into English as "borrowing" but this was so wholesale that it might be better described as a merger of the two languages.

In contrast, Romance languages seem to retain the Latin gender pattern, but with endings that differ by language.

The most infuriating thing in French and Spanish is the gendered language and trying to remember which words gets which genders. I would love a gender-neutral French. But adding both endings to a word? No thanks.

My female friends in theatre are calling themselves actors as the past example. As we're mostly anglophones with French as a second language, we're just adopting the same stance when speaking in French.

Point of order: This is far from a new trend/fad. I remember using similar constructions about 20 years ago (things like "étudiantEs"). I am not sure an aesthetic argument (which is also probably a consequence of familiarity) is enough to counter the hostility of some environments towards women. Now, I don't think that this is a priority, even among language issues. You should probably start by undoing the forced masculinisation of certain job titles by the French Academy (I mean, why not use "doctoresse" or "écrivaine"). You could also loosen up the plural rule: If a group is gender-mixed, then you should be allowed to use either form (i.e., say "les actrices" or "les acteurs" if it is a group of five women and one man). While you are at it, get rid of the "mademoiselle/madame" distinction. I am not sure this should come as a command from the French Academy (I am much more in favor of an evolving language based on use than something rigidly directed from an ivory tower). I am not even sure changes need to happen, but I have issue with the dismissive attitude some have ("I don't like it, therefore it's not an issue"). Acknowledging biases and discrimination is more important. Then again, maybe I am influenced by the yearly discussion around Zwarte Piet (maybe I should start a thread about that, if people are interested).

I am not even sure changes need to happen, but I have issue with the dismissive attitude some have ("I don't like it, therefore it's not an issue"). Acknowledging biases and discrimination is more important.

As a Spanish speaker, I can see that these gendering issues reflect an ancient bias, but I have trouble accepting that it results in discrimination. At least not in comparison to other aspects of culture. Because of that, I have a fairly dismissive attitude towards these attempts to neutralize suffixes.

About the only thing I like about Mandarin. The language is gender free. Just wo (me), ni (you), ta (everyone else). I would think French would be more difficult than English as so many objects have masculine or feminine designations. And those hyphenations are just plain abominable!

I notice that our Prince Harry has become engaged to an American actor, who will be Princess Meghan.

I'm sure that says something for the English language take on this issue - but I'm not quite sure what.

Everything about royalty is pretty anachronistic, so we can expect gendered titles to stay around longer there than just about anywhere else. Anyway, under male-line primogeniture, there was a material difference in rank between 'prince' and 'princess,' so gendered terms made some sense. The UK didn't switch to absolute primogeniture until 2015, so there hasn't been much time to see linguistic evolution.

The really weird issue at the intersection of gendered language and royalty is the difference in rank between 'king' and 'queen,' where because 'king' is higher rank, if the reigning sovereign is male their wife is 'queen,' but if the reigning sovereign is female their husband is 'Queen's consort.' Obviously we should fix this by calling the reigning sovereign 'king' and their spouse 'queen' regardless of the gender of either party. This preserves both titles and their rankings while eliminating gender as a consideration, and also neatly accommodates same-sex marriages. I'm sure nobody could possibly object to this entirely reasonable proposal....

As a Spanish speaker, I can see that these gendering issues reflect an ancient bias, but I have trouble accepting that it results in discrimination. At least not in comparison to other aspects of culture. Because of that, I have a fairly dismissive attitude towards these attempts to neutralize suffixes.

From my perspective I don't see it creating discrimination but rather perpetuating it.

El Doctor makes it difficult to use the consciousness raising riddle of the doctor whose child comes into the emergency room and the doctor (la doctora) says "I can't work on this patient, she is my child". That riddle attempts to normalize the idea that women are doctors as well as men. Perhaps you might want to be less dismissive of these smaller more incremental attempts at change.

As a Spanish speaker, I can see that these gendering issues reflect an ancient bias, but I have trouble accepting that it results in discrimination. At least not in comparison to other aspects of culture. Because of that, I have a fairly dismissive attitude towards these attempts to neutralize suffixes.

From my perspective I don't see it creating discrimination but rather perpetuating it.

El Doctor makes it difficult to use the consciousness raising riddle of the doctor whose child comes into the emergency room and the doctor (la doctora) says "I can't work on this patient, she is my child". That riddle attempts to normalize the idea that women are doctors as well as men. Perhaps you might want to be less dismissive of these smaller more incremental attempts at change.

Most gendered words, at least in Spanish, don't change gender with the object they are after. For example, vestido (dress) is always masculine. Titles are a bit of an exception. That being said, I'm not sure I really agree that it's a necessary construct in terms of forcing a language change. Your riddle could be left ambiguous even in Spanish if needed to make your point, but I suspect your point could be made better other than tricks of language.

As a Spanish speaker, I can see that these gendering issues reflect an ancient bias, but I have trouble accepting that it results in discrimination. At least not in comparison to other aspects of culture. Because of that, I have a fairly dismissive attitude towards these attempts to neutralize suffixes.

From my perspective I don't see it creating discrimination but rather perpetuating it.

El Doctor makes it difficult to use the consciousness raising riddle of the doctor whose child comes into the emergency room and the doctor (la doctora) says "I can't work on this patient, she is my child". That riddle attempts to normalize the idea that women are doctors as well as men. Perhaps you might want to be less dismissive of these smaller more incremental attempts at change.

Most gendered words, at least in Spanish, don't change gender with the object they are after. For example, vestido (dress) is always masculine. Titles are a bit of an exception. That being said, I'm not sure I really agree that it's a necessary construct in terms of forcing a language change. Your riddle could be left ambiguous even in Spanish if needed to make your point, but I suspect your point could be made better other than tricks of language.

I think part of the problem is change proposals don't always define scope. Removing gender from literally every noun in Spanish might not be feasible without effectively creating a new language. But gender neutral nouns referring to people and especially professions are probably worthwhile to pursue. If "a [gender neutral] doctor can open a [gendered] door and examine a [gender neutral] patient lying in a [gendered] bed" there's room for progress without altering a massive amount of random vocabulary.

I suspect your point could be made better other than tricks of language.

It wasn't my point, it is what I thought the point was of the riddle maker. It is a small way of making larger points. It reinforces grand ideas that tend to get a lot of opposition. Sometimes it helps to take a softer approach. The riddle is generally used to start off a discussion that challenges long held societal expectations about gender roles. For the most part that particular riddle has lost its power because it is so widely known now and because there are a lot of doctors who are women now. It wasn't too long ago that the Andy Griffith show got a lot of mileage out of a "Lady Pharmacist" and even less long ago that a politician made a fool of himself by saying "Lady Mayor".

I am not sure, but Dilma Rousseff, ex-President of Brazil, might have been known as Presidente in Portuguese which would have the word staying masculine suggesting she was doing a man's job instead of a job for either a man or woman, but then it is just a title so perhaps most people wouldn't even put that together and still see the job as one either traditional gender could do. I wonder what title Marie Le Pen would have had if she had won the election.

Doesn't that just perpetuate the idea that a couple has to be married?Why not the President's consort? As an added bonus, it covers the genderqueer as well - it even doesn't have to be singular.

And since I'm referencing that previous post anyway, there are supposedly female monarchs who have been crowned king. It has been used as a nice way around gender-restrictive laws (such as kings being rulers and queens having no legal power) because usually they omit specifying that the king must be male, or they do it just as a means to be an ass to her spouse who is therefore not king (which I suppose would mean the title of queen was still left open, yet they never seem to take it). Of course these stories fit a particular modern narrative, and are probably more translation issues than anything.

I find that confusing. Are the actors American too or just the actresses?

As for "acteur·trice·s", which article do you use? Un acteur·trice·s? Une acteur·trice·s?

As an English speaker that seems pretty straightforward to me. Native French speakers?

I'd agree. My formal English knowledge has always been spotty but don't adjectives modify all nouns that are combined with conjunctions in English?

Restructuring "The American actors and actresses..." to English would seem, to me at least, to be saying "The American (actors and actresses)..." rather than "The (American actors) and actresses...".

I, of course, have no idea how French works in this regard.

In french (at least according to the current rules), if an adjective qualifies a group of males and females, it's always masculine in plural, whatever the order. So "acteurs et actrices américains" / "actrices et acteurs américains". But first of all, with me at least, "actors" does not necessarily invoke "males who do acting", it's more, "people who do acting". You really need to be in a specific context to get the meaning "males". This to say that the combination "acteurs et actrices américains" sounds slightly weird.